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A major part of typography is formatted a paragraph of body copy. Too many of us stray away from ever using justified type. We justify (no pun intended) ourselves by saying, “I just don’t like the way justified type looks.” (I admit, until recently this was me also.) You could make an entire career out of saying that and probably get away with it. But what a waste!

Justified type has played such a critical role in the history of book design and page layout. To limit yourself to flush-left only is cheating yourself of a powerful tool in your type arsenal. It is akin to always defaulting to Helvetica.

This tutorial is to try and pass on a few tips I’ve picked up from The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst. (If you don’t own or haven’t read this book I highly recommend it as your go-to standard for everything type.)